Monday, December 28

The time of my life

As you can tell from the lack of posts this week, I am having the time of my life.

The time of my life began when I left a very snowy State College, fearing that my bus trip would have to be postponed to the next day or worse, but instead the bus cruised right out of the snowstorm and reached Massachusetts a half hour before scheduled time. Without skipping a beat, my parents took advantage of this and took me to a Christmas party at Sindhu's place in Westford. I for one was ready to fall asleep after having been continuously sleep deprived for four days, but enjoyed seeing Sindhu, Ramya, Sushmita, and fellow college goers Shruti, Praneetha and Prashanth before beginning our three week break.

Over the next few days, I completed my christmas shopping for friends and family members by day and hung out with school buddies by night. On Christmas Eve, I went to a party at Nikhil's place and saw more Telugu pals, witnessed a Yankee Swap for the dads, and gave Praneetha her gift (a sexy leather jacket in which she looks smashing).
On Christmas day, I went to Nipunn's place with my family for lunch. Had a great time.
And the following day, we had a party in our own house for some more friends. We hosted a Yankee Swap, an awesome cookie decoration competition, and the infamous group mafia!! I have some pictures.

The Yankee Swap

MAFIA

The Great Cookie Decorating Competition (This is just one of the many trays)

Yesterday the fam and I went to see Avatar in the movie theaters! It is really something. There have been very few movies in the past few years that have not at least slightly disappointed me when I came out of the theater. Avatar is one such. It's a rather simple and unoriginal storyline, but it really makes a connection with the audience. Of course, the visuals are just stunning. I'm looking forward to watching it again in IMAX.

And today, I had a very exciting, tiring, and slightly painful day as my dad took me and Vishnu to Nashoba for fun on the slopes. I snowboarded for the first time in my life. Boy, it is hard. It's harder than skiing because once both your feet are strapped in, they cannot move, even as you plummet down the mountain at 40 mph. The only directional control you have is from alternatively angling your board with the toes and heels. I'm still terrible at snowboarding, but when you get it right, it's such a rush. I want to go back soon, but I'll probably stay home tomorrow since I'm sore and may have twisted my ankle.


Well that's all. I'm sure the time of my life will only continue when I go to New York City in a few days!! Of course I will write all about it.

Keepin' it real,
Sowmya

Thursday, December 17

Awesome.

I am so happy right now, I can blog!

In less than six hours, I will have finished my last final exam of the semester! But the reason why I am so happy is because this week was supposed to terrible, but I pwned it! I will explain.

I basically had the worst final schedules ever: 4 exams at 8 AM from Monday to Thursday and then another one on Tuesday afternoon. I was angry about this. And then a few days ago, I contracted a head cold after having one less than two weeks ago. Damn cold virus (I had actually just read about how it's impossible to find a cure for the cold while I was studying Immunology...funny how things work). I showed up at my 8AM Immunology exam in stupid Keller building (located all the way on the other side of campus) with a headache and blocked sinuses. After that was done I really wanted to just go to sleep, but of course, I had to tutor physics 250 for two hours. It was raining. I walked to McLanahan's to buy medicine and Vanilla Chai only to find that they were all out of Vanilla Chai. By the time I got back to my room, my shoes were soaked. It was basically a terrible morning. After sleeping for about 4 hours, I had to get up and start studying for math and physics.

The next day, I attended my math exam at 8 AM, which seemed to go fine except for this one problem which resulted in factoring of this equation. Calculators were not allowed and I did not know that 92 was divisible by 4 (come on, it was 8 in the morning). I fell asleep after that test but then had to yank myself out of bed to take my physics exam at 4:40. Everything was going fine during physics until I dropped my calculator on the floor. It stopped working. As you already know, I can't do mental math! Everything was going terribly. I was sleep deprived and sitting before a physics final exam with sniffles and a broken calculator.


And then, like a switch was flipped, everything got better! My left sinus cleared up. The annoying song that was stuck in my head finally went away. And then with five minutes left, my calculator turned on! I finished the rest of my physics test and bounded out the door. The next morning, I had Astronomy. And it was so cool because my Professor gave me a gift!! It's this digital sky viewing software and she gave it to me for answering all her challenge questions! How cool is that! Dr. Kregenow is a G.

I watched Animal Planet for a few hours, went to sleep, and woke up at 1 AM (today). It was clear that I had been severely sleep deprived thanks to final exams and congestion. And then I saw that I got an A in physics and immunology! I feel so much better now, even though I still have another test to take.


And just now, I found out that I can breathe normally again! This is so great

Tuesday, December 8

*Cries*

Believe it or not, I have like THREE drafts for a new blog post but I couldn't find something engaging enough to write about. Therefore, I have decided to stop caring. Hear me pine:

I have diagnosed myself with senioritis. As I sit in Atherton computer lab with my Immunology textbook before me, sipping Wild Cherry Pepsi (non-coffee source of caffeine), kicking myself for not starting to study sooner, hoping that I can be reborn as a sea sponge, I have never felt so in need of a long break. I am also tutoring my psuknowhow students several hours a day, but that's to be expected since it's finals week. I think I'm going to know physics 250 better than I know my own subjects :P

However,
There are gifts to be bought.
TV shows to be caught up on.
Cookies to be baked. Er, burned.
Snow angels to be made.
Christmas parties to be attended.
Time to be wasted.

I'm going to New York City for New Years (!) but having to wait until the semester ends is becoming more and more difficult. I don't think I'll make it.

Bai

Sunday, November 22

Thanks

I am currently suffering from a rather annoying head cold, which has caused my sinuses to be blocked up for a few days. I am currently breathing through my mouth, which is causing my throat to go dry, which makes me thirsty and so I frequently drink water and thus have to go to the bathroom often. While there are many things I wish I have right now (such as an instant cure for this stupid cold) this is not the season for self centeredness. There are indeed many things I am thankful for, including:

Penn State's week long thanksgiving break (meaning I get to spend 9 days at home)
painkillers
indoor heating
christmas lights that are wired in parallel rather than in series
external memory storage
short hair
carpet
a private bathroom
a holiday season that occurs when the weather is terrible
and the fact that my family and friends like to celebrate every holiday in the world, especially with food

I am at home right now, as you might have guessed, after having gotten here on Friday night. I don't have much to write about since I haven't done anything exciting yet, but I'm sure there are many exciting adventures to come when the rest of my friends get out of school some time in the middle of this week.

Monday, November 16

Subs = wisdom

HI FRIENDS

I am in a good mood since my toe isn't hurting that much anymore and I just drank hot chocolate while watching a funny movie. Many of you may not be surprised as to why I am blogging at 3:35, but I shall explain to those who are less familiar with my wayward sleep schedule. I have been desperately trying to normalize my sleep cycle all weekend, and I think this may work. So I stayed up the whole night studying for Immunology and went to sleep at 5 PM. I woke up at around 11, so I am going to stay awake as long as I can one more night, perhaps taking a nap in the morning. And then by 10 PM tomorrow, I will be sufficiently tired to go to sleep and wake up at a normal time! Theoretically, it should work very well.

By the way, if you were curious to see what last week's dance performance looked like, you can view my Facebook album entitled Post-Aghaaz Photoshoot.

So...on Friday evening, Ramya, Arthi, Moksha, and I went to Subway for some late night veggie delites ended up immersing ourselves in a deep discussion about fate and determinism for four hours. Many points of view changed that night. I for one do not believe in "fate" in the traditional sense: the idea that my opinions and actions have no role in determining what happens to me in the future and that I should just stop being proactive and let time run its course. I do however believe that there is only one possible course of events in time--only one path on which all things will eventually occur. I was annoyed by this idea at first, but it makes a lot of sense. "Every event, including human cognition, behavior, decision, and action, is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences" (Wikipedia).

Think about it this way.

A particular event, such as me rolling a die and coming up with a 4, can only happen in one way. You might think of a dice roll as a random event, but it's really not: the outcome is causally determined by many things, one of which is: the precise amount of torque and force I exert on the die, which may be determined by my present mental state as defined by a certain pattern and number of firing neurons, which may in turn be determined by a variety of things including my genetic makeup as well as what I had to eat that day...you can go on and on back into time until you extrapolate the causes of my rolling a 4 to the one event in the beginning. We don't know for certain what that is (a big bang?), but it's like the push that starts a very long line of dominoes.

You are but one domino in this very long sequence. You don't decide to fall, rather, you are caused to fall by a previous event and you don't really have a say in whether or not you would like to fall.

It's not a very likeable idea, I admit. All this time, you thought you were a being capable of making and decisions and determining your own future. The idea that everything you do was bound to happen anyway is really unsettling. Do you have any free will at all? Technically you don't--so why not just give up everything you're doing right now? It's faulty to think about it that way, because in letting the idea of determinism influence your current "decision" will put you in a bit of a paradox.

What do you think about this? I would like to hear your comments

Friday, November 6

It's possible to bruise a bone.

This has been a rather filled week, but rather fulfilling as well. It was filled with two exams, three quizzes, two dance performances, and a bruised bone. I shall elaborate:

On Wednesday night, in a fit of rage, I accidentally kicked the brick wall in front of Thomas Building. As a result, I suffered from a swollen big toe the entire next day. An X-ray at UHS revealed that there was fortunately no fracture (though the doctor calls it a "bruised bone"). But here's the thing...I have never looked at an X-ray of myself before. Call me strange, but I genuinely experienced one of those profound oh-my-god moments when I saw the bones of my right foot. Maybe that's how a pregnant woman feels when she sees the ultrasound images of her baby. I saw my metatarsals. They were beautiful.

I am truly grateful to my body. I frequently put it through all sorts of trauma and torture: all-nighters, double shot espressos, dance practice, and the occasional stupid injury. It's always been resilient to the crap to which I subject it. But I am especially thankful to the big toe on my right foot. This is the toe that got gashed open by one of the front doors of Bedford High School right before a lacrosse game and the same toe that suffered a subungual hematoma (blood under the nail) after a particularly klutzy dance-jump for Bhavayami this past summer. Today was the Indian Grad Student event at Alumni Hall called Aghaaz, where PSU Natya performed a Thillana (the one that I choreographed =D). Instead of listening to the doctor, I swallowed two advils and danced on the bruised phalange. Yet I feel no permanent damage. I love you, toe.

Other than to exhibit the gratitude I have towards my toe, I would also like to use this post to express how much I appreciate Penn State. Having come from a graduating class of 160, I remember being really apprehensive about attending a huge school where I thought it would be impossible to feel comfortable around so many people I didn't know. But I was, of course, wrong. A big school means that there are endless opportunities to connect with your surroundings and it's pretty much guaranteed that you will find the right group of people who share your interests. I had never dreamed that I would use college as an opportunity to indulge my passions in stuff like music, history, astronomy, nature, and the performing arts. You just have to open up a little bit, take some chances, and before you know it, you will find your comfort zone and college starts to feel like home.


...And before I go, an interesting tidbit from HIST 176: Did you know that Persian was once the official language of the Indian subcontinent? It was established so by the Mughal emperor Akbar. Before Persian, the official language was Sanskrit. But today, we can clearly observe Persian influences on North Indian languages. In fact, Persian + Hindi resulted in Urdu, which is the modern day official language of Pakistan as well as that of many Muslims that live in India.

That's all. Thanks for reading!

Sunday, October 25

I'm back

To skip the astronomy tidbit, scroll down to the next paragraph.

At the center of the earth, there is a tiny spherical region of space which is rather special. It is theoretically impossible to know about anything that happens inside of this region. Allow me to explain. Cosmic bodies (and, technically, all matter) have escape speeds, i.e. the speed one must travel in order to escape the gravity of the body at the surface. The escape speed on earth (at a 6400 km radius) is just over 11 km/s. Escape speed is proportional to a planet's mass and inversely proportional to the square of the distance you are from its center. So if you were to take a planet and compress it so that you retain all of its mass but decrease the radius, you can increase the surface escape speed. Now imagine if you can keep compressing the planet until you raise the escape speed to the theoretical maximum of speed: c, the speed of light (300,000 km/s). This means that in order to leave the surface of a planet with a radius any smaller than this, you would be required to travel faster than the speed of light, which is impossible. The surface of this little sphere would represent an imaginary border called an event horizon because any event that is occurring within this radius can ever be seen, heard, or known by anyone outside--even light does not escape. The radius of this imaginary sphere is called the Schwarzschild radius. The Schwarzschild radius of the earth is about a centimeter. So even if we could hypothetically travel to the center of the earth, there would be this little region the size of a grape that we could never know about.
Another thing: there are actual objects whose entire mass lies inside their Schwarzschild radius, meaning that it is impossible to get any information from these objects at all. They are called black holes.
If you thought that was intriguing, you should read about special relativity.


So. We are like halfway through this semester and I am in that annoying period of time where I should really start studying for exams but I really don't want to because they are sort of far away. So, I content myself with catching up on episodes of The Big Bang Theory.
In other news, Nipunn came to visit yesterday! CMU had an ultimate frisbee tournament here so he arrived here with his team yesterday afternoon. When I first saw him late last night, he was caked in mud. After he showered, we took him for Rahul's place to hang out and D.P. Dough's for a killer calzone.

Oh, and I may be in love with Counter Strike Source. I don't know when this happened. But it's bad and I love it.

Tuesday, October 13

What you probably didnt know about Hinduism

I finally have enough to talk about for a new post. But before that, updates on my intriguing life: Poor Arthi has the swine flu :( and is therefore being quarantined in her and Moksha's room. Thus, Moksha is rooming with us for the next week or so. So now I have two roommates! Last night we took Arthi to the hospital and she seems to be on the mend.
Last weekend was great in that I didn't do much work. A highlight was the prog outing to Chili's on Saturday where I had a Molten Lava Chocolate Cake for the first time after my arangetram. I'm not going to try and describe eating one, but I urge you to try eating one yourself.

Okay, so today I am going to talk to you about Hinduism. If you're like me, you've grown up in a Hindu household where we have gods, rituals, flowers, and other things without much explanation attached. You've been to temples, stood in front of a statue with your hands together, offered coconuts, been part of the occasional archana, put kumkum or vibhuti on your face, swallowed theertham, and took prasadam after the whole affair was finished. You can name gods and have seen/read the Ramayana and Mahabharata through comic books, TV serials, or black and white movies. But you've also heard in your Balvihar class that the point of life is to leave the cycle of birth and death and achieve liberation, done by renouncing all material life (Huh??). Basically, you know enough about being a Hindu to call yourself a Hindu, but you're not quite sure what that means and you're aware that some things don't quite make sense or fit together. I am obviously not going to explain what being a Hindu means, but I will offer a historical perspective into our religion, and an objective outsider's view into all the rituals, philosophy, and whatnot. Through this, you may be able to understand why we do what we do and why some things we do contradict other things we do. And hopefully this will prepare me for my test on Thursday (eep!) for HIST 176.

I'm going to try to be as concise as possible, but that might be difficult with the history of one of the oldest religions in the world. There are no two points in time when Hinduism has ever been the same, but historians like to divide the development of Hinduism into four separate phases:

1. Formative Stage - Involved very elaborate rituals involving fire, mantras, and priests. The mantras came mainly from the Rig Veda, which is the oldest part of the Vedas. The modern day equivalent would be the yagnam. This was a time when the purpose of praying to gods was simply to improve the well being of the material world. For example, make a sacrifice so that it will rain and your crops will grow. We still do this.

2. Philosophical Stage - This was a time where there was much more philosophical discussion and speculation about nature and god were introduced. This arose mainly from the Upanishads, another section of the Vedas. What did they talk about?
They decided that there was a Brahman, or universal, all-pervading soul that the Atman, or individual soul, aimed to join. As determined by your actions, or karma, the atman was born into different bodies and only when it exited this cycle of birth and rebirth, the individual could achieve ultimate spiritual liberation (Moksha). It was pretty abstract and complex stuff, and a far cry from what they had during the formative phase. You can also consider this the development of the monotheistic aspect of Hinduism. And we still have this too.

3. The epic/classical phase was one that saw the production of fantastic stories, namely the great epics: Ramayana and Mahabharata (a part of which was the Bhagavad Gita). They also produced law books, the Dharmashastras, which tried to lay down the principles of social life, kind of like a constitution but not really. An interesting part that came out of the Dharmashastra was a theory about the stages of life: basically, when you are young, you should pursue learning and a career so that you can be a productive member of society. But once you start to get old, you should leave society and enter the forest, where you can begin a life of meditation, yoga, and austerities while you ponder the ultimate truths.
Note that the two previous phases of Hindu history kind of went against each other. One was about gaining material wealth by praying to gods, while the other was all about renouncing it. This phase was an attempt to reconcile the two.

4. The Medieval Phase was probably where you see most of the features of modern Hinduism. At this time was the emergence of Bhakti, or devotionalism. It was at this time that the idea of closeness and intimacy with god became more prominent. Here, the gods of the Vedas (Indra, Varuna, etc.) merged into the background while the classical gods took greater form: Vishnu (and his incarnations), Shiva, and Devi. Temple construction became more common and people started doing pujas, which were a more personal form of worship than great fire sacrifices that priests and lots of money.

So as you can see, the history of Hinduism suggests that it can be both monotheistic and polytheistic, both material and spiritual, both opulent and austere. It's really hard to try to explain all of this religion at one go. It's just so complex. I shall also talk about the caste system.

Saturday, September 26

What happens if you get a tetanus shot with a rusty needle?

It's one of those paradoxes of life. In order to answer this question, we have to know how tetanus the bacteria works inside our body (and how the vaccine prevents it).

Tetanus is caused by the bacterium Clostridium tetani. Spores of it are found all over the place, especially in the soil. We usually associate tetanus with rusty nails mainly because it's easy to puncture yourself with a nail and a rusty one is most likely to have all sorts of germs on it. But rust is nothing special... its not necessary for the bacteria's survival.
Once inside the body, the bacteria start to multiply and establish an infection. C. tetani produces two exotoxins, tetanolysin and tetanospasmin. We don't really know what tetanolysin does, but tetanospasmin is a neurotoxin and is super lethal. Once inside you, it travels through your blood vessels and lymphatics, where it gains access to certain parts of the nervous system: peripheral nerve terminals (nerve endings found all over the body), the spinal cord, and the brain. The toxin is absorbed by the nerve axon and transported across synaptic junctions until it reaches the central nervous system, where it attaches to gangliosides (certain proteins that serve in cell signaling) at the ends of inhibitory motor nerve endings. Here, the toxin cleaves other proteins that are involved in nerve signaling, and thus prevents any electrical movement between synapses.

Once you have no communication between motor neurons, this causes problems for the muscles that they attach to. Remember that tetanus affects inhibitory neurons, so if one neuron cannot inhibit the next motor neuron, that motor neuron will continue sending signals to a muscle fiber, putting it in a state of permanent contraction, which causes muscle rigidity and spasms. This is why tetanus is called "lockjaw".




So now you know how tetanus is caused. What does the vaccine do?


The tetanus vaccine is a toxoid. Toxoid vaccines are made by treating the toxins with heat or chemicals such as formalin. Doing this alters the toxin slightly, destroying the ability of the toxin to cause illness (in this case, to bind to the components of the nervous system) but it doesn't alter the toxin too much--the immune system will still produce antibodies against it and these antibodies can also bind to the potent unaltered form of the toxin. Once the toxin molecule (the antigen) is bound by antibodies, it can be destroyed a number of ways by cells of the immune system. Over a period of time, we get tetanus boosters so that we can increase the proliferation of the memory B and T lymphocytes that are responsive to the neurospasmin antigen, which is basically like refreshing our immune system's "memory".


Just FYI, there is another tetanus shot you can get which, technically speaking, is not a vaccine. It is tetanus immunoglobulin, and is essentially the serum from someone else who has antibodies against tetanus. Injecting yourself with this will give you temporary immunity in case you might have just been infected. This is called passive immunization because unlike active immunization (what is described above) the body doesn't produce its own antibodies.



Now, you know how the vaccine (and vaccines in general) work. So, now we can ask:
What happens if you get a tetanus shot with a rusty needle? (Assuming that: you have no prior immunity to tetanus and you are receiving the tetanus vaccine, not the immunoglobulins)

Essentially, we are asking: what happens if you get hit with the tetanoplasmin producing bacteria and the the weakened form of the tetanoplasmin toxin at the same time? The short answer is: you will still get sick.
This is because when you administer a vaccine, you need to give your immune system enough time to develop the antibodies via B lymphocytes, the cells that make the antibodies. B and T lymphocytes are part of your body's adaptive immune system, which typically kicks in 6-7 days after the innate immune system (which acts immediately upon invasion by pathogens). By the time a B cell recognizes the antigen, replicates, and creates antibodies to the weakened form of the tetanoplasmin, the bacteria from the rusty needle could have proliferated and produced enough toxin to cause damage.

So there you have it. Don't get a shot with a rusty needle, even if it's a tetanus shot :)
Thanks for reading

Monday, September 21

An intriguing question

In this post (which I plan on finishing later), I will attempt to answer a question that I have wondered about since I was about 11 years old.

What happens if you get a tetanus shot with a rusty needle?

I know very little immunology at this point, but I will venture an educated guess.

Tuesday, September 15

Let's talk about Lookback Time

Ok. Time to shake things up. As we all know, the quality of this blog has rapidly gone downhill, so the content around here is going to be changed. Instead of rambling on self-centeredly about my own life, I will enlighten you all with the wonderful knowledge I am daily acquiring at school. And no, there is no sarcasm here. I really like most of my classes, as is evidenced by the fact that I attend lectures. My two favorites are Astronomy and Indian History, and Immunology is rather engaging as well. And now that I have decided to share my knowledge of these three subjects with you, you will know which way is north just by looking at the stars (useful if you're ever stranded at sea), you will know what a Swastika originally meant, and if you happen to get sick with the flu virus, you will understand how exactly H1N1 is wreaking havoc inside your body.

And if you really want an update on my own life, here's what happened the past few weeks: I went to class. I came home. I did homework. I went to meetings. I watched TV. I went to parties. Oh and I passed the MCAT.

Soooo lets get to some interesting stuff, like some of the things I learned in Astronomy. By the way, the class itself is painfully boring because its an intro level non-science major class. However, some of the topics are nevertheless intriguing, such as the concept of lookback time. Lookback time is the idea that whatever you see with your eyes is actually old information. Allow me to explain. Say that you are standing about twenty yards in front of me and I wave to you. The moment I wave to you, you see it because the light reflects off me and reaches your eyes. However, because light has a finite speed (3 x 10^8 meters per second), it takes a certain amount of time for the light to get from me to you. In this case, it is far less than even a thousandth of a second. In normal earthly situations, nobody cares about lookback time because the distances we deal with are so small and so whatever we see is almost exactly what is happening.

Lookback time actually matters when we consider astronomical distances, such as that between galaxies, between stars, or even between the earth and the sun. The sun is so far away from the earth that it takes a full 8 minutes for the sun's light to reach us. So if you ever watch a sunrise, know that the first rays of sun you are seeing are a little bit late. The sun has already "risen" 8 minutes ago but you're just finding out about it now. Lookback time is even more dramatic when we talk about objects that are much farther away, such as stars and galaxies. Take for example the star Vega, which is 25 light years away from the earth. That is, it takes 25 years for the light from Vega to reach us. When we look up at Vega, we are seeing how it was 25 years ago. We don't really know the present state of matters. Vega could have exploded and died 10 years ago and we wouldn't know for another 15 years. Crazy, huh? And for galaxies that are ridiculously far away, such as those that are billions of light years away, it gets even cooler. When we see light that is more than 5 billion years old, we are looking well into the past, into a time before the earth and the solar system even existed. Imagine that.

The age of our universe is thought to be about 13.73 billion years. Get a load of this: the top circled galaxy in this picture is 13 billion years away.

Tell me this is not cool. What, now? Yeah. That's what I thought.

Take this Astronomy quiz from the New York Times if you're interested.

Friday, September 4

New post

I have decided this is an apt time for a new post, as it is right before the long weekend and if I don't post now, I probably won't ever again.

This is it--my final year in college. Senior year, if you will. I've been here for less than two weeks and I already feel like I've lived here forever. Summer? Did that even happen? It's so weird what a change in location does to you. So anyway, I've been having a good time so far. I and all the other progs live in Simmons Hall on the same two floors (we planned it this way). We have nice rooms with high ceilings, vast closets, and lots of shelf space. And we're a good distance to classes, downtown, and other places of interest. I have a new roommate, Anita, who brought many wonderful things to the room such as neatness, vast amounts of food, and a TV. Right now, I am watching a Hindi sitcom that is running on TV Asia. It's a good life.

Not to say that I haven't been keeping busy. I actually attend some of my classes this year, especially the interesting ones such as HIST 176 (A Survey of Indian History). The other class I like is ASTRO 001 (Astronomy). Lectures are a bit slow sometimes, but its still pretty cool stuff. Apart from those, I have PHYS 212 (Electricity and Magnetism) and MICRB 410 (Immunology) which both promise to be challenging enough. There's also MATH 140 (Calc). Oh! And hip hop dance too.

Which reminds me. I am running late for hip hop, so I will resume this post after I return.

Wednesday, September 2

yeah...


This is bad, I know, sorry. But I'll have a new post soon.
In the meantime, look at the following pictures inspired by my ASTRO 001 class. They put things into perspective. Thank you, Professor Kregenow.






Pretty sick, eh?

Sunday, August 23

This is why I get headaches often

I am sitting at Logan Airport outside Terminal B10. I have just been kicked off the plane for screaming obscenities at the flight attendants.
Haha, just joking. I would never have the guts to do that. Actually what happened was, there was an electrical problem on the plane and they needed to shut off power and reboot or something. And to do this, they apparently cannot have passengers onboard. Don't even ask me. I am just savoring the last 10 minutes of warmth before I am put onto that over-air-conditioned plane, even if it means sitting and blogging in this decrepit godforsaken excuse of an airport.


...2 hours later....


AH! So the plane has decided that it will not take off before 9 o clock, which means I will certainly miss my connecting flight to State College, which means I will not be leaving today. My flight is going to be at 2:30 tomorrow. What do you want me to say. I dared to think that the weather was nice, so maybe I would have a decent journey. And maybe for the first time, I would actually be there for the first day of classes. But when it is not raining or hailing or snowing, something else obviously has to go wrong, i.e. electrical problems on the airplane. WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN TO ME EVERY TIME...

But honestly though, I am quite sad that we're at the end. For the past week, I've just been holding my breath for Penn State and itching for college to start again. But as I sat in Logan airport waiting for my stupid plane to get ready, the homesickness came crashing down on me. It's been a long summer vacation and I think I've gotten to accustomed to the free life. But three and a half months of summer is starting to feel inadequate. Well, I get to sleep in my own bed for one more night. Yay.
ERLACK What's wrong with me? I should be excited to go to my second (and final) year of college. MCATs are over, as are most of my premed requirements. I get to take cool classes like Hindu philosophy, A Survey of Indian History, Astronomy, and Hip Hop Dance. So what's my problem? I'll tell you once I figure that out.

Anyway, I am planning to write a novel about all the horrible air travel experiences I have had. Please read it and be glad that you are not me.

Saturday, August 15

Rafting on the White Waters

Currently, I have this weird head cold sort of thing where my sinuses are kind of blocked but I don't have a temperature or anything. I can't tell if its due to allergies or a cold virus. It's nothing serious, but the weird part is I get it often when the weather is warm. Weird huh? Well the good thing is I was feeling pretty good yesterday when we went white water rafting!!

It was intense stuff. There were 19 of us total who went--five or six brown families. The unfortunate part was having to wake up at 5 AM (after going to sleep at 2. It's been a while since I've only had 3 hours of shuteye) and driving to Varun's house in Acton in a state of half slumber. And then another lengthy car ride over to the rafting place in Charlestown, MA.

The sun was hot and the water was cold when we rafted off into the Deerfield river, six to a raft. It was me, Praneetha, Mihir, Aditya, Babu Uncle and our guide Scary Larry to the last raft. Scary Larry ended up being a good choice since he let us surf the rapids. During the first one, Mihir got sucked in and almost lost his paddle. A life changing experience.
By the time we reached the last set of rapids, we were total pros. Near the end of the journey, Mihir, Aditya and I jumped off the raft and swam the rest of the way. Never underestimate the power of flowing water. And don't ever try to swim against the current because you will lose.

I'm thinking of designing a video camera that you can attach to your head/helmet when you go on epic trips such as white water rafting or mountain biking. Then you can film stuff. Wouldn't that be sick?

Sunday, August 9

This is freedom.

Remember at the beginning of the summer, I was talking about how awesome freedom was and how it felt so good to be free after so long? Well that was nothing.



Now, I feel truly free.

My MCATs finished themselves off last Thursday in Burlington. I hadn't spent an extraordinary amount of time studying for them all summer, but it still feels good to be done. But I wasn't completely free even then, because I still had to submit my final paper for my online class. We will return to that later.

So my MCAT lasted from 12:00 to about 4:30 since I opted not to take any of my 10 minute breaks between the sections. After ten bajillion practice tests, it's amazing how much you get sick of the stupid exam and are willing to avoid delays just to get it over with. When it was over, I was going to walk over to the mall. In the winter, I'm always complaining about the cold weather and reminiscing about the summer, so I should be appreciating the warmth, right? So instead, I frolicked around in the grass and ate the perugannam (yogurt rice) that my mom had packed for me to eat during the breaks. Mmmmm yeah

I went home and watched Aakasamantha, a really nice telugu movie. Watch the Tamil original, Abhiyum Naanum, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKbg7rWGQUg. It's sweet and funny. I felt wonderful, but the sense of freedom hadn't quite kicked in until I woke up on Friday morning. I was determined to figure out exactly how I would do nothing all day.

It was a gorgeous day. I pedaled over to the bike path and took several photographs on and off the bike. Yes. I took pictures while on the bike. I came inside. I ate things. I sat around for a while. I ate more things. I made gulab jamun. I went outside and shot hoops with my bro, who beat me twice at knockout. I showered. AND IT WAS ONLY 3:00! What the heck! Does time really go that slowly? I showered. The fam and I went to Madhavi and Shyam's place for dinner and I was pooped beyond all measure when we got back.

Saturday morning brought to Shruti's house for her grad partayy. Let's just say, I burned more calories than I consumed (despite the pie + ice cream), what with the antics and attempted bharatanatyam on the trampoline, netless badminton, volleyball, and Apples to Apples. The party didn't actually end, as we decided to go shopping in Nashua afterwards. I bought my first pair of Chuck Taylors! Turns out, my essay was due at midnight...so when we returned from the mall at about 9:30, I figured it would be a good time to start working on it. I managed to finish it just a little after midnight, as we gave Sushmita a surprise birthday cake. Wow! Procrastination is still exhilarating as ever. Mmmm. This morning, we awoke and went to Woburn to watch Magadheera. That movie was freaking 2 hours and 30 minutes long, damn it. After about 1.5 hours, it was intermission. The American cinegoers must have thought "phew, the brown people are finally leaving the theater..." but of course we piled back in for the second half. It was a pretty good movie. Pran and I went to the Chilakamarris' place for a Pooja/lunch after that. We got back just a couple of hours ago.


So, what am I going to do? I have exactly two more weeks with which to enjoy this feeling of fabulosity. Sometimes I have felt that stress is what defines my life...when I freak about school, when I desperately study for a test, when I rapidly churn out an essay...that's when it feels like I have some sort of meaning in my life. But I guess this is a nice feeling too.

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Monday, August 3

no more dance? WHAT??

oh BOY

Yesterday was our show, Bhavayami Raghu Ramam. I shall tell you about it. It consisted of several Bharata Natyam pieces, including a varnam (the long, central dance) named Bhavayami Raghu Ramam. This is a song written by the king of Kerala, Swathi Thirunal, in praise of Lord Rama. It essentially tells a compact version of the entire Ramayanam broken up into separate chapters. Our little dance group which consisted of me, Mamtha, Pranathi, Bhavana, and Nityasri divided up the different roles in the Ramayanam for this dance. We also did a Pushpanjali at the beginning and a Thillana at the end. Between these dances, our teacher Jothi Raghavan presented a few solo pieces, also about Lord Rama.

The the whole thing was awesome several reasons:

1. We didn't screw up that much!
2. We actually had an audience! I would estimate about 150-200 people came, and that is incredible considering that we had expected about 30. We were even contemplating locking people inside the building after Neha's arangetram the previous day, but we didn't have to.
3. We got Lindt chocolates as gifts! Caramel!
4. We had a pizza party afterwards! We went to JA's house and I was actually able to eat pizza since I got to change into a pair of JA's clothes (how are you supposed to eat with that belt on ??).
5. It didn't rain! What more can you ask for?

So, yeah, I am rather sad that it's all over. For the past four weeks, the five of us had been attending daily rehearsals for three or four hours and so all of a sudden, there's a lot more time in the day. It's like post-arangetram again--I've got this void to fill. Well right now, I should have no trouble with that...MCAT studying...but still. It'll be weird not seeing Jothi Aunty and the musicians every single day. It has been a very dance-filled summer, what with performing at Martha's Vineyard, Nritya Haram, lighting for Nayaki, doing the little thing at Chinmaya, and then Bhavayami.

My post MCAT plans include:
- going to several amusement parks
- finishing my thesis
- designing a T-shirt
- cleaning my room,
- playing soccer in the rain again
- watching Magadheera (which, by the way, is supposedly excellent)
- attending some more grad parties
- biking to Alewife in a half hour (22 mph FTW). it's gonna be epic
- daily blogging (!!!!).

But now, I have only 72 hours left to study for the MCAT and I guess I should start. After I eat something first. Photographs from the production will appear in my next post.

Saturday, August 1

Bhavayami Raghu Ramam

it's our dance show on Sunday, August 2nd at the Littleton High School Auditorium, also known as the place where my arangetram took place (and everyone else's). Please come! It has come out really well.

Monday, July 20

Mmmm Poori

Yesterday was one of those days that you wouldn't expect to be insanely awesome but turns out insanely awesome and you're pleasantly surprised. The fabulosity started when I started grading my practice MCAT verbal section and noticed that my answer sheet and the answer key were rather synchronized. This made me happy. Now this must also happen for the other two sections.

At about noon, the fam and I (minus Vishnu who was at a sleepover) went to Sravanthi's house where there was a Pooja. Being the horrible people that we are, we arrived at the end of the pooja, just in time for the food. For some reason I really like pooja food. It was also a graduation party/going off to med school party for Sravanthi. It was a ridiculously nice day so Sravanthi and her dad cut their cakes outside. It was uncle's 50th birthday. Two cakes! Double awesome sauce.

After that, my mom and I were planning to gatecrash an arangetram since it was taking place in Bedford High School. It was some student of Neena Gulati's, so we were hoping to see some Odissi. Pranathi, Bhavana, and their mom also came along and we arrived right at intermission time. We missed the Odissi but got to see the bharatanatyam and kuchipudi, including some plate dancing which was nice. We didn't feel bad about being there uninvited since we didn't actually consume their food. And besides, I got to see BHS again! The new auditorium looks pretty good. Once Pranathi posts up the pictures, I will share them with you.

After that spectacle, we chilled at my place and then drove over to The Pongal restaurant, where we had reserved a total of 16 seats. It was the night out with the musicians and Jothi Aunty! So we took them to an Indian restuarant (I know, creative) and were joined by Mamtha's fam. We talked about everything other than our dance production, ate, drank, and merried. I ordered some ridiculously huge deep fried pooris which tasted excellent but I needed my brother to help me eat them. Several hours later, we were the only ones in the restaurant and once the waiters started getting fidgety, we decided we should at least get up and let them clean. The large mass of people moved outside and chatted for another half hour. We moved a few steps closer to our cars and chatted for another half hour. We then realized that we could get into trouble for loitering around a building after hours so we reluctantly packed ourselves into vehicles and drove home.

And we all saw each other today during dance rehearsals. I swear, you'd think people would eventually run out of things to talk about, but you're always wrong.
:D

Pictures soon, I promise.

Thursday, July 16

Harry Potter!

Its mid July. The days have actually been pretty nice, but what have I been doing? Forcing myself to stay indoors, taking MCAT practice tests, and practicing dance. I am actually in the middle of taking a test right now, but I am feeling the need to blog. Last weekend, I went to Nikhil's graduation party where there were several great adventures, such as being trapped in their sauna, throwing a paper towl roll across the pool (and failing, as you can see by the wet soggy mess here), and going on the MoonBounce while wearing dresses and skirts. Here are some illustrations.


Its name is Bob.

What started out as innocent poolside relaxation escalated into a battle of great splashes and wetness. We were merely dipping our feet into the pool when Sanjana got wet and needed the paper towl roll. Someone decided to throw the roll across the pool, and of course it missed the deck by one foot and landed right in the water, creating large splashing and loud screaming. Then commenced the great splash battle.

After Nikhil's house, the fam and I decided it would be a good time to go shopping. I got new sneakers (remember my old ones were ravaged by Holi colors?). On Sunday, I was forced to wake up exceedingly early (8:30) to attend morning dance camp. After that, we took the musician uncles, Venu, NS, and Srikanth, to the Sai Center where they sang bhajans and played instruments. Listening to NS uncle play the mridangam was INSANE. We went shopping after that. Great fun, we had. In dance class, we've finished with our Pushpanjali, Thillana, and we're working on the Varnam right now. We've done all this in just the past week and a half, which is a LOT.


I went to see Harry Potter 6 yesterday! It is probably my favorite movie of the series so far. I liked it because it was definitely its own film and didn't rely excessively on the book. From the fourth book onwards, it would be unfair to compare the books with the movies because there is no way you can be faithful to the text in a movie of reasonable length. It was still a long-ish movie but I liked the pacing--it didn't feel like everything was crammed together. It was also quite hilarious. Compared to the earlier movies, there is definitely a greater of sophistication and richness and subtlety that the last two films have had, and I have high expectations for the last one.

GAH! I'm still having a hard time believing that the series is actually over. I remember being in India when book 7 came out, so I actually was able to get it a full 9 hours before it was released here! My book has the British cover though.

I should probably get back to my practice test. Bleh. Seeya

Friday, July 10

take me away

Wow. It's already 10 days into July and today was one of the few nice days of weather we've had in this past month. What's wrong with this planet? Global warming? Grrr

Dance classes for the production began on Monday. The production is entitled Bhavayami Raghu Ramam and it's a senior dancers only production. We've only been choreographing for four days but it is looking really cool. Here is a flier for it:


Snazzy, huh?
You guys should really come to this. It's going to be good. I just know it.

Anyway, I haven't been doing much else besides studying the past few days. I did however update my music collection. As for Hindi music, you should listen to the album Luck by Salim and Sulaiman because it's pretty good. I like the song Jee Le.

Would anyone like to go biking one weekend when the weather is nice? Let me know.

Sunday, June 28

dance dance dance dance dance dance

It would be really unfair to this past week if I didn't blog about it.

Last Thursday, the fam and I went to Martha's Vineyard for a brief weekend getaway. Well, actually, Mamtha and I were signed up to dance at Lauren and Vijay's wedding reception on Friday, the day after. We drove for about two hours on Thursday evening, took a ferry off the mainland, and reached the island at about 9 PM. It was rainy and gross. But, we stayed in a nice cottage.


The next morning, it was still raining on and off and we didn't know whether we should try to make it to the Hindu Ceremony, which was supposed to be at Aquinnah Lighthouse, or start getting ready for the performance. We chose wisely when we decided to start getting ready. We spent two and a half hours in Mamtha's hotel room getting dressed and bejeweled--which is actually a pretty fair time considering that we each had to do full braids + hair ornaments with only two mothers for assistance.

Then, we sped down the roads of Martha's Vineyard (by sped, I mean drove at the speed of 30 mph when the speed limit was 20) and got to the wedding reception at 7. Thankfully, it wasn't raining and sun was kind of coming 0ut. The performance went wonderfully, especially since we were not expecting people to actually watch us. However, we seemed to get everyone's attention and they sat around us while we danced for 45 minutes, like it was storytime! It was cute. They seemed to really like our dance and thanked us with gifts and a lovely dinner.


We had all of the next day to ourselves, so we drove around the island to different popular locales such as the Gingerbread houses, fudge shoppes, and the lighthouse. And the Black Dog store, where Mamtha and I bought the same shirt ("how cute", I know). It was a rather exhuasting day and my fam ferried and drove back to the mainland that night.

On Sunday morning, I woke up realizing that I had another dance performance that day. Nritya Haram was taking place at 4 pm so there was really no point in my trying to scrub away the red marker on my toes/fingers. Jyoti and Nisha showed up at my place and while driving to Littleton, we reminisced about the arangetram memories of last summer. After the show, I went to a nice little Nritya Haram afterparty at Praneetha's house with Sravanthi, Bhavana, Swathi, and Sravanthi. It involved food from Olive Garden and Apples to Apples. It was therefore awesome.

Here is a picture of us senior dancers after the Thillana (thanks, Swathi, for the picture).

Over the next five days, I attended rehearsals of Nayaki, the solo performance that Jothi Aunty was doing on the 27th. I was in charge of lighting. I expected it to be just dimming and brightening, but it turned out to be WAY more complicated than that. Here is a poster for Nayaki:


The performance took place yesterday at the Sorenson Theater, in Babson College. I literally spent 8.5 hours there: I got there at 1, helped set up, programmed in all the lighting cues, drew some stage markings with tape, and rewrote the lighting cues into my notebook. It was then 4. I went over the lighting cues again and made some final changes. Then, I had to help adjust some fixtures so that the musicians could have more light. All of a sudden, it was 5:30 and I frantically got changed into my sari. I hobbled up to the technical booth in my heels, basically exhausted and starved from not sitting down or eating for the past 5 hours. The show started at around 6:30 and for the next two hours, my heart rate was pretty freaking high as I repeatedly punched the 'go' button for each cue. Turns out there were 108 separate lighting cues. 108!! Not even kidding. The lighting turned out well except for one issue when the computer froze and I kept hitting the wrong "back" button, so the stage was dark for a fe seconds. But the dancing was, of course, fabulous (we are talking about Jothi Raghavan here). At 9:30, Manasa and I left for Saketh's graduation party. But we left pretty quickly from there because, well, I was exhausted. And I hadn't even danced!!

I can't believe this week is over. Now, I just have to write a 5 page essay to submit on Tuesday and try to study before the next week of DANCE CAMP! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

Tuesday, June 23

CAMPING part 2: you have a caterpillar on you

After consuming whatever calories we could find, we gathered around the picnic table and tried to plan how we would spend our day. Those who had gotten at least a few hours of sleep agreed to go on the hiking trails for a little adventure.


It was about a 5 mile drive to the hiking trails. Lo and behold! We got to the same spot where the GPS had led our van yesterday...to some random ditch that was apparently part of the path to the trails. We passed a sign that said "Fire Tower" and obviously decided to go there as it was obviously something dangerous, exciting, and fun. A fire tower is where, in the olden days, people used to fling fireballs and other such flammable things at enemy planes in order to bring them down.

It was a rather steep climb up the trail. We had to scale rocks. Climb trees. With our bare hands! Well, we could have also just walked around the rocks and trees, but some us had an insatiable thirst for danger, adventure, and scrapes.



Much later, we got to the top of the trail and saw Fire Tower. Turns out, Fire Tower is just something people climb to see if there are fires anywhere. It was a big white tower which had the sign "no entry". Of course, Nipunn climbed it and took this picture from the top.


We then climbed to the summit of the mountain to lounge for a bit, tan (or blacken), and take pictures.

We sat for a while and pondered the essence life, our existence, and our place in the universe. Is there a meaning? Is there a purpose? What time was it? It was 12:30 and we were rather hungry, so we decided to head back for lunch. The sandwiches were gobbled up on about 5 seconds and we made a trip to the Pawtuckaway beach where we had a very spirited game of frisbee tossing in the water. I was definitely pooped when we got back to the campsite...and it was only 3 in the afternoon. We lounged around the campfire some more and were too tired to brush off the caterpillars off our pants and chairs.


These fuzzy little caterpillars, gypsy moth caterpillars according to wikipedia, were basically everywhere. I think there were more of these than there were mosquitoes. Every five minutes, this would be said:

"Hey (insert name here), you have a little friend on your (insert body part here)"

And then (insert name here) would either brush the caterpillar off his/her (insert body part here) or stare at the critter for a few seconds and go back to sleep. I undertook the job of collecting the critters from peoples pant legs and dropping them into the center of the fire pit, where they wriggled around while covered in ash. It was fun to watch. Honestly, there was nothing else to do.

A bajillion hours later, it was finally getting dark and we started making s'mores! Yum. I like to eat s'mores without the graham crackers.


The rest of the day continued at the pace of a gypsy moth caterpillar and there's not much else to mention except for the fact that it started raining once it was dark. Trying to sleep was a huge issue, especially with the sound of big fat raindrops slamming into the tent roof. But like my mom says, "you want a Tempur-Pedic mattress? Go run 10 miles and then you'll be able to fall asleep even on the hardwood floor". If you're REALLY tired, you don't need a comfy bed. Even a leaky tent pitched on wet tarp will do. Of course, some people were wimps and slept in their cars, but most of us roughed it and achieved about 6 hours of sleep.

It was still raining in the morning when we brushed the caterpillars off our stuff, packed it up, and drove off. We ended our camping trip by stopping at an IHOP for breakfast where we again consumed all of our food in about 5-6 seconds. We drove then to Alex's house to hose off all our belongings, flick away the last few caterpillars that came for a ride, and say goodbye to each other.

So that was our foray into the great outdoors. It was basically an awesome trip, including the rain (what kind of camping trip is complete without the rain?) and I believe there are plans for another one! This next one is going to be even awesomer, I just know it.

Monday, June 15

CAMPING part 1: omg pancakes

I finally have something entertaining to blog about, so I will be as descriptive as possible for your reading pleasure. So my school friends and I went camping last weekend to Pawtuckaway, New Hampshire. The forecast had predicted rain the entire weekend but the weather was actually pretty nice most of the time. It was an epic adventure filled with action, thrills, laughter, natural beauty, and caterpillars.

It was Friday and I had just returned from practicing dance at Mamtha's. I was leisurely packing my camping things, happy that the weather was clearing up when Nipunn and Dennis showed up at my house 45 minutes ahead of schedule. After cramming the rest of my things into Dennis' minivan, we picked up three bags of ice from a gas station and Katherine from her house. We set the campsite destination into the GPS and set off. It was a great long ride to Pawtuckaway thanks to the Friday afternoon traffic.


We were all quite excited we entered the campgrounds (we also had to go to the bathroom after downing large cans of Iced Tea). But oh no! Turns out the GPS had led us into the middle of some random trails rather than the campgrounds. While Dennis took a driving break to relieve himself in the bushes, Nipunn hijacked the van and started driving away.


And then we decided to roll back and pick up Dennis, since the campsite was registered in his name. After driving around to find some signal, we called some friends and got directions to the campsite. Another 45 minutes later, we made it to Pawtuckaway and bumped into Staci, Jeff, Cat, and Jesse who invaded the van and got us to our site. And we finally met up with Alex, Kim, and Kevin. The next few hours were spent assorting our belongings into various tents and locating chairs and flashlights. At about 8, we tried to start a campfire.


Several paper bags and a bottle of lighter fluid later, it was 9:30 and we decided that we were starving and it would be a good idea to ask someone for help. A nice man from a neighboring site used the Boston Herald to light us a fire and we finally got it going. It was 10 when we finally got the food grilling. After eating and horsing around, we decided we should go to bed before too many insects came out and started harassing us.

After about 3 hours of sleep, I woke up at 5 AM along with Staci and Nipunn. We brushed our teeth and took a nice walk through the woods. It was a perfect day. We were told that we couldn't start cooking breakfast until everyone was awake, so we devoured the last brownie crumbs from the day before and lounged around in the middle campsite as people trickled out of their tents. It was 9 AM when the hunger was too much and we pulled out a bottle of Bisquick Shake n' Pour to make pancakes on a skillet. We didn't want to try making a campfire, so we lit a bag of coals. Then, we realized that we didn't have any grease for the skillet! We searched. The closest thing we found to butter was one of those stovetop popcorn things. Dennis decided that he would try to cook the pancakes anyway, without any butter. He proceeded to make a pathetic looking blob of dough that ended up more like a cracker than a pancake.


However, it didn't taste bad, so we used up the entire bottle of Shake n' Pour.


The last came out pretty well and tasted almost like a pancake though it looked more like a Cannoli.


Despite having successfully used the entire bottle of portable pancake mix, we were still hungry. We only then found out that 1 bottle of Shake n' Pour cannot feed 12 people. We devoured whatever snacks we could find before setting out on a trip up the hiking trails to FIRE TOWER! Dun dun dunnnnnn.

To be continued...

...

Sunday, June 7

More pondering

This time, I don't have an excuse for my lack of blogging. With all this free time, one would think that I could spare about 5 minutes to update you on my life. I have greatly disappointed myself. I have shown that I lack both commitment and responsibility.

^There. I just admitted a flaw about myself. Does that make me a sensible person? Yeah? Or maybe I'm just saying that to make you think I'm a sensible person. Here's the question: Is there a difference between modesty and humility? Yes. Say that I made the above statement just so I could come across as one who admits one's faults. I may do this to avoid arguments: If someone were to tell me that I am irresponsible, I could avoid the argument just by agreeing. This is a form of modesty. I would also exhibit modesty when I know I'm great but I don't flaunt it, perhaps for fear or being seen as arrogant.

Now, if I were to make that above statement and truly believe it, that is humility. I am only truly humble when I sincerely believe that I am flawed. They say that the truly great are humble because they are aware of what they have not mastered. This characteristic could be applied to the philosopher Socrates, who is thought to have been a true genius not for acquiring vast knowledge but for simply being aware of what he does not know. Knowing that there is always more to know is a sign of humility and is what spurs on philosophical and scientific thought.


That was my deep and thoughtful segment for today. So, what's new with my life? You guessed it: not much. I've been dancing more lately in order to prepare for this one performance my friend Mamtha and I are doing at wedding in Martha's Vineyard about two weeks from now. I also have decided to take part in the first Nrityanjali Production called Nritya Haram. It promises to be wonderful and tickets are only $10, so you should certainly come. Just let me know if you're interested.
And what else? The letters M, C, A, and T are looming large and scary. I hope to be done with 1/3 of my studying by the end of today though. Next weekend, I really want to go camping with my friends, but we'll see how that works out.

Ciao for now, and please comment so I can know if there are people at least mildly interested in what I have to say. Thanks!

Saturday, May 30

Squirrel!

I have just emerged from an episode of depression caused by weather the past three days. I would be biking or climbing trees but my brother stole my bike. And the tree bark is still a little wet from yesterday. So it's a good time to blog.

Well...still doing nothing these days, though I did start studying for MCATs along with the usual flute playing and soccer ball juggling. Recently, I found out that Season 5 of The Office just ended and this is a great opportunity to watch every single Office episode. I torrented the first three seasons and am currently in the middle of watching the second season. I can't believe I hadn't been watching this from the beginning. I've also been watching 30 Rock, which is really funny.

I did start my philosophy class on Wednesday. Some interesting questions were posed, but not answered. Yesterday, we began reading the Euthyphro dialogue, which is this conversation between Euthyphro and Socrates as written by the philosopher Plato a really long time ago. It discusses the nature of piety and impiety, attempting to go beyond the dogma of the age (this is ancient Greece, where they followed to gods of greek mythology). Euthyphro is a priest who believes he knows the exact nature of piety and is therefore justified in prosecuting his father against a particular crime. Socrates, however, attempts to force Euthyphro to question his beliefs about piety by refuting every definition and investigating it with logic.

Socrates is often described as a gadfly, since he is generally annoying and always posing upsetting questions. I like him, however, because he was the voice of reason in a world where there was nothing else but blind faith. He would be pretty useful today too. I'm sure more interesting problems like these will come up in the future and I will share them with you.

But! I almost forgot to mention that we went to watch the movie Up yesterday on opening day. It was, of course, good (made by Pixar) so you should also watch it.

Sunday, May 17

Empty and Blissful

An ideal summer vacation is empty and blissful. I haven't actually had one of these in three years, seeing as last summer consisted of many hours of dance practice and the beginning of college. The summer before that, I started working at MIT the day after school let out. Then, I went to India for 5 weeks. Then, I worked at MIT again until school started. Naturally, I am thrilled to have all of this free time. I even decided to avoid doing the first dance camp + production so that I may continue to frolic and enjoy.

Lately, I've been working on juggling the soccer ball, flute playing, and cooking. I have also beeing playing online games, watching television, and considering setting up the DDR.

Yesterday was Relay for Life, so some pals and I biked up to the track between the middle and high schools and did some laps while meeting old teachers and high school kids. However, the grade school atmosphere soon became extremely irritating and we had to leave. Kim, Staci, Nipunn, Jeff, and I biked up to Lexington Center where we played some poker in the grass (yes, poker), indulged in some warm drinks at Starbucks, and had dinner at Not Your Average Joe's. I had Calamari. Piscitarianism is great!

We biked back to Bedford in record time and I prided myself in doing so without even touching my handlebars. We then went to Page Field and started kicking around a soccer ball and tossing around a frisbee AT THE SAME TIME. Epicness. My dad brought us some badminton equipment and we proceeded to have the greatest game of netless, courtless badminton on the grass for the next 2 hours. My forearm even aches now. Soon, it got pretty dark and the mosquitoes were moving in on us so we went into my house and ate grapes and ice cream while watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

And that's how things have been. Unplanned, spontaneous, and carefree. Life should be like this always.

Tuesday, May 12

THIS is how you expend calories

One would expect the end of the semester to be stress free, but with the getting back of grades and the packing and the visiting people before they leave for good and grocery shopping (due to lack of meal points), it is NOT stress free. Thursday was the day of my last final, so I kicked back after that was done: had lunch with 2nd years, played soccer with a volleyball on the hub lawn, stole Chen's bike, and lost at Poker again.

Arguably the best part of the entire year occurred on Thursday night as Ramya, Anita, and I walked from McLanahan's while drinking free Chai all the way down to the golf courses on the west side of campus in an attempt at midnight stargzing. The moon was excessively bright, so we weren't able to see the stars very clearly, but we were, however, able to see what was on the golf course. We kicked around some sand, stuck our feet in the golf holes, and wondered if building a fire on the golf course would draw too much attention. We also found this quaint little flowery
tree that we decided to climb and act monkeyish on. It was great fun...especially since the darkness made it difficult to judge the height of the branch you were perched on. We have claimed that tree as our own. It has even given me a large scrape on my ankle which I am sporting proudly. I wish I took a picture of it (the tree, not the scrape).

Friday was actually much less fun than Thursday, especially since I realized how much packing I still had to do. I burned about 4000 calories as I lugged this huge box of stuff up and down a hill to my friend's office on the very edge of campus. In attempt to reduce my luggage weight, I sold as many textbooks as I could. I tried to convert my spare change to cash (how come all banks close at 4:30? Is that some rule?). I donated my lovely shampoos. I threw away a ton of clothes. I sent my rug off with someone. And finally managed to fit the rest of my belongings into two suitcases and backpack. Note to self: PACK LIGHTLY FOR COLLEGE NEXT TIME.

And so Saturday morning, I flew back to Boston via Philadelphia and reached Bedford by afternoon. I was then unpleasantly surprised to hear that I had been signed up for two dance performances at Pfizer Corporation, on Tuesday and Wednesday. I was then pleasantly surprised to hear that I would receive $100 for it, which is great because I am completely broke.
So here I am in Connecticut, blogging when I should be resting up. But what can one do? It takes some time to reset the sleep schedule of a college student.

So amazingly, the end of the semester has actually resulted in me being overworked and underfed. I better be losing some weight otherwise I will be angry.

Anyone want to go climb some trees?

Wednesday, May 6

Release

There was Physics, and then there was Physio, and then it was already 2/3 over. And here we are, the day before the last day of the first year. With assistance, I have already made a list of excellent things to indulge in after OChem tomorrow morning including:

1. Tree climbing
2. Capture the Flag at night
3. Bonfire made of organic chemistry notes. One big combustion reaction...oh the irony.
4. Go to taco bell at 2 AM
5. Barefoot volleyball in the sand
6. Screaming

and, I guess, packing.

So on Saturday I was down in the lounge, studying and my friends serenaded me with "Happy fake birthday" and took me to the Waffle Shop. It was great.

I am going to study. Bye

Friday, May 1

I don't think I can last until the end

Here are some photos from last Wednesday's photoshoot of the arangetram girls.

I do not exaggerate when I say that hair and makeup takes over an hour.

Weirdness at the photostudio, after everyone's pictures had finally been taken.

Fear me.


In the home stretch here, the Friday a week before the Friday the day before I leave (I leave next Saturday).

I just finished teaching myself Pericyclic reactions, which are mildly interesting, though I would much prefer NOT having to know them at all. My Ochem final is less than a week away and is the last exam of my freshman year at the Pennsylvania State University. Once I'm done with that, I'll be a senior. And "halfway there".

I haven't posted since I got back from my self-imposed vacation, so I'll tell you how the week has been since then. I had a pretty amazing journey back, and by amazing, I mean: no thunderstorms, no rain, no delays, no long waits, no 110 pound suitcases, and no lost luggage. I left the gorgeous 80 degree Boston weather and touched down 4 hours later into 85 degree State College weather. It was perfect. I wish all plane journeys can be like that. However, there are some unfortunate and unfair rules about life at Penn State and this is one of them:

The amount of work needing to be done is directly proportional to the awesomeness of the weather.

It's true; don't bother denying it. Every single time it's been nice outside, we've had to study for a test or do a lab report or write an essay. And since I had to start studying for final exams last weekend, the climate gods made it a point to create exceptionally superb weather, thus ruining my life.

And that's how the week has progressed: wistfully looking out the window, cursing the climate gods, and wildly fantasizing about moving time forward. On the bright side, I am completely finished with Biology labs (last one was yesterday!) and will never again have to step inside the sick, abominable place of death and evilness that is Mueller Building. I also had my Ballroom Dance final exam before the judges yesterday, which I think went pretty well. Tonight, we have to attend the semiformal dance and showoff our moves. I now know Rumba, Cha-Cha, Quickstep, Waltz, Jive, Tango, and a teensy bit of Samba. It's going to be a blast because for a change, everyone there will know how to dance!

Bye for now
and expect a change in the layout some time soon. I'm getting bored of this.

Thursday, April 23

Home is where the work doesn't get done.

Once again, I can't believe its already Thursday. As I start writing this post, I am currently at Praneetha's house after a double sleepover (my house is being painted right now and is thus filled with noxious fumes, cold, and loud music). I arrived Tuesday evening with my Physiology textbook, a bundle of clothes, and three lipsticks. We ate, played poker, and I studied. Praneetha's photoshoot was the next day (hence the lipsticks) and I would be helping her get ready. She, along with three other pals of mine who learn from Jothi Aunty are having their arangetrams this summer, so they need nice photographs of themselves to put on the arangetram invitations and brochures.

We awoke excessively early the next morning (at 6:30). Praneetha, her mom, and I picked up Ramya and her mom, and drove to Jothi Aunty's house, where we met Neha and Shweta and their moms. The next two hours were filled with getting the girls all made up as if they were about to go on stage. This includes several layers of foundation, powder that lightens the skin by 5 shades, enough eyeliner to give the "raccoon" effect, and RED lipstick. Also, their hair needed to be weaved and braided into complex arrangements that allowed them to wear flowers (fake jasmines) in it. For the first time, I realized what an involved and lengthy process by doing it on another person.

I spent the first hour coloring everyone's toes and the outline of their feet with red Sharpie (of course that's my job...I am the expert, remember?) and undertaking other such degrading jobs. Luckily, I wore waste clothes so it didn't matter that I got red smudges all over them. We finally left Westford at around eleven, and drove all the way to Belmont to the photo studio. Tensions were still running high as people needed their eye makeup fixed or hair smoothed down before they were called down for the photographs. And then we spent close to 5 hours taking 4 sets of photographs in 12 different poses and 6 different close up shots. If you look at my arangetram invitation and brochure, you'll see just a few of these.


Oh mannn. It was so exhausting and I wasn't even in it this time! I was reminded of the stress I went through last year, what with the whole dance business and that Global Voices performance I had to give and upcoming graduation and prom and all that.

Ramya, Praneetha, their moms and I drove home pretty exhausted after the lengthy photoshoot and several hilarious pictures of our own. At Praneetha's we and a bunch of kids tried playing things like baseball, monopoly, and poker (all of which failed) and just ended up going to bed soon after, at around 11. We were so very tired.

Got up in the morning, and crammed as much Physio in as possible. On the bright side, I now know how the body regulates its salt and water balance. Will have some really awesome pictures up soon, so check back.

@---;----

Saturday, April 18

Tra la la la laaaa

I am at home! For the past two days, I have been sleeping on time, eating food regularly, and playing soccer outside. I should study more.

Wheeee

Sunday, April 12

Holi Cow!




It was cold. It was wet. It was gloomy.

And then there were colors! Of course, the crummy weather didn't stop us from celebrating Holi, as if college students w0uld ever pass up the chance to attack their friends with colored powder and dump each other into the mud.

Being on the board of the Hindu Student Council (yeah, that's right) I went to the HUB at 1:00 and sold Holi t-shirts for a few hours. Karthik and I then went running at Rec Hall because one of us came up with the clever idea that if we arrived at the Holi celebration all hot and sweaty, the cold wouldn't bother us as much and the colored powder would stick better. So at 5 PM we started the color splashing. In the beginning, when it was still somewhat organized, we handed out little paper cups with colored powder in them and people tossed them onto each other. Later on, it was easier to just rub oneself onto another.

Several people also got dumped with pails of water or pushed into the mud. It was fun, as long as you weren't the victim. By 7 PM, we were thoroughly drenched with water, mud, and colors. My hands were frozen solid and I was exhausted from attacking people or dancing to the background bhangra. Ramya and I went home, showered, and agreed to do our Holi laundry together. My t-shirt and sneakers look really cool right now.

Nothing much happened during the rest of the weekend, except feelings of relaxation and happiness that I will be going home in 4 days. YESSSSSSSSSS